B.J. Penn’s camp has filed a formal complaint with the Nevada State Athletic Commission over Vaseline that was allegedly rubbed on Georges St. Pierre’s back between rounds one and two.  UFC president Dana White said at the post-fight press conference that he was aware of the complaint, and said he personally witnessed members of the commission take the Vaseline away from GSP’s camp and rebuke them in the Octagon between rounds.

"I saw the commission jump up there and flip out," said Dana White.  "They said one of the guys was rubbing Vaseline on Georges’ back in between rounds.  It was one and two, I think."

"The guys from the athletic commission went up there and started screaming at them, knocked the Vaseline and kicked the Vaseline out of the Octagon."

White added that "some Vaseline on a guy’s back didn’t change the outcome of that fight, but you don’t do it," and said the blame should fall on the cornerman responsible and not GSP.

"If a guy was intentionally putting Vaseline on a guy’s back, he should never corner a mixed martial arts fight again."

As for what becomes of the complaint now, White said it’s out of his hands.

"Who knows.  That’s up to the commission."

Update: A member of Penn’s entourage tells Fighters Only that GSP came out for round two "covered in Vaseline," adding that the "“whole [of Penn’s] team is pissed off."

(Gono‘s Afro wig gives Fitch much happiness.  Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

The MGM Grand Garden Arena is sold out for tonight’s event, leaving lonely men to wander the casino floor and mutter hopeless pleas for spare tickets.  But you, you lucky bastards, have this liveblog.  It’s as elusive as Lyoto Machida, as much of a chick magnet as Georges St. Pierre, and as steeped in straight-up, gangsta realness as Nate Diaz.

We’re going to get started with the prelims at about 5 pm PST, so if you don’t want to ruin the undercard results for yourself, tread carefully.  Otherwise, hop on and enjoy the ride.  Remember to hit refresh often.  But before we get started, how about helping us out with a Digg.  Thanks.  You’re the best.

Watch BRUCE BUFFER Talks UFC 94 BJ PENN VS GSP on RawVegas.tv

Upon first hearing this story of the genesis of the best intro ritual in all of MMA – I speak now, of course, of the Buffer Turn – and learning that it came about by accident, I admit I was stunned.  That’s like learning that the invention of the telephone was all just a screw-up, or that For Whom The Bell Tolls was written on cocktail napkins during a three-day drinking bender.  How can something so beautiful be the product of mere happenstance?

But it’s true, fight fans.  The Buffer Turn (and please, can’t we all call it that?  Buffer 180 sounds like a skateboard trick) may have been an accident, but it’s part of our lives now.  And thank God for that.

All this, and more, in Raw Vegas‘s talk with the man behind the microphone.  You may be asking yourself: does he ever take off that suit?  To which he would reply: does Superman take off his cape?  Not while he’s working.  And as long as he’s talking, Buffer is working, son.

This is a Pepsi commercial that will air during the Super Bowl.  From the looks of it, the goal is to show that each generation continues doing things that previous generations before them did, like drinking Pepsi!  

Gina Carano comes in around the 0:18 mark, right after Bruce Lee.  Before you get too worked up about the comparison, remember that this fun little SAT analogy game started by going from Bob Dylan to will.i.am, as if to prove that this generation is more superficial than every other one.  Still, MMA fighter in a Super Bowl ad.  Hooray.

(ESPN‘s "MMA Live" previews UFC 94.)

- Ben Goldstein’s picks for the UFC 94 Betstravaganza. (BetUs.com)

- Matt Lindland is okay, but can’t remember his KO loss. (Fighters Only)

- Dana White’s bonus video blog. (YouTube)

- For Tito Ortiz, talkin’ ain’t easy. (Fightlinker)

- GSP thinks maybe B.J. Penn got caught up in the hype. (MMA Fanhouse)

- Told you this staredown was intense. (UFC.com)

- Dana White is the 14th most influential man. (Ask Men)

- The Adventures of B.J. Penn and GSP. (Cage Writer)

- An NFL team in London?  England? (Scores Report)

- Daily market madness. (Wall Street Fighter)

- Ted Haggard’s Match.com profile. (Holy Taco)

- 12 great art house movie babes. (Screen Junkies)

- Decent ground-and-pound in this brawl. (Nothing Toxic)

(Photo courtesy of MMA Weekly.)

The MGM Grand Garden Arena was a packed house for this afternoon’s UFC 94 weigh-ins.  Every fighter made weight, some after taking full advantage of the extra pound allowance for non-title bouts.  

Akihiro Gono got the crowd’s attention when he showed up in zebra shorts and an enormous Afro wig.  As a show of good sportsmanship before the staredown he offered the Afro wig to Jon Fitch, who accepted it and put it on his own head for the photo op.

B.J. Penn clocked in at a very svelte 168 pounds, just in case you forgot this wasn’t his natural weight class, while Georges St. Pierre was an even 170.

Said GSP after the weigh-in: “I’ve never been so excited for a fight.  I’ve never wanted to win so bad.  Tomorrow night, don’t blink.  It’s going to be a great fight.”

As for Penn, he said simply: "I’m ready.  I have nothing else to say.  Let’s fight."

The most intense moment of the weigh-in occurred when Clay Guida and Nate Diaz finally came face to face.  A fired up Guida worked the crowd into a frenzy first, while Diaz came out to a chorus of boos second.  After both men made weight, Guida got right in the taller man’s face.  Diaz, naturally, continued mean-mugging Guida all the way off the stage.  Because for the Diaz brothers, it’s always personal.

Full results from the UFC 94 weigh-ins are after the jump.

(Gegard Mousasi accidentally interrupts Tito Ortiz’s brilliance at "Day of Reckoning" last Saturday. No, this has nothing to do with your comments; I just thought it was hilarious. Props to VIPete/Gnarly219.)

Scoring the CagePotato "Hall of Fame" t-shirts this week are…

realNick on "Affliction Payouts Are as Ludicrous as You Expect…": Never realized ‘Arlovski 360′ actually stood for the spin Arlovski makes when he gets knocked out.

schnetzler on "Ben vs. Ben: UFC 94 Edition": just to piss you guys off, let’s rhyme more names on the card…

Georges "The Grizzly Bear" St Pierre
BJ "Mother Hen" Penn
Stephan "Badge of Honor" Bonnar
Dong Hyun "Trim and Prim" Kim
Jon "Nobody’s Bitch" Fitch
Akihiro "Oh No" Gono
John "Powered" Howard
Dan "The Shamer" Cramer

Outstanding. If your name has been called, please e-mail us at feedback@cagepotato.com with your real name, address, and shirt-size.

***

UNRELATED REMINDER: Fowlkes will be liveblogging UFC 94 tomorrow night from the MGM Grand Garden Arena, beginning at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Do not, under any circumstances, miss it.

(Photo courtesy of Zimbio.com.)

We called up Joe Rogan earlier this week hoping to shoot the bull about tomorrow’s UFC card. Instead, we got a full education about humanity’s impending peak point, the thievery of war, Ashton Kutcher, and psychedelic Internet dance-porn. But that’s how it goes with Joe, whether you’re listening to his stand-up comedy CDs or watching him explain things to Mike Goldberg during UFC broadcasts — not only are you entertained, but you actually feel smarter afterwards. Of course, he did run down the GSP/Penn matchup for us, as well as share stories about his early days with the UFC and fill us in on his upcoming comedy special. So read on and be enlightened…

***

CAGEPOTATO.COM: I saw on your website that you did some standup gigs in Austin, Texas last weekend. How would you compare the Austin crowd to the Dublin crowd you played to the week before?
JOE ROGAN: They’re both great in different ways. Ireland is a lot like England — they really appreciate American standup comedy over there. I don’t know what it is about American comedy and the U.K., but it seems to work. I’ve even met a few American expatriates who live over there and do standup. But Dublin was great, and the fans in Austin are always awesome — it’s one of my favorite places ever.

Out of curiosity, is it possible to score good weed in Ireland?
Not good weed. No. You can get passable weed. Unfortunately for the Irish, marijuana is just as illegal as heroin or cocaine or anything else. I believe the way they prosecute it is by how much the drug is worth, rather than how dangerous or harmful to society it is.

I just got your last comedy CD Shiny Happy Jihad, and in the liner notes it says “All together in 2012.” What’s going to happen in 2012?
That’s like the million dollar question, right there. Who knows what’s going to happen. I’m not a scientist, or an archeologist, or a futurist, so for me it’s more fun than anything. But the idea behind it, according to people who take it very seriously, whether they’re the people who decipher the Mayan calendar, or the Terrence McKennas of the world — there’s a guy named Terrence McKenna who actually created a mathematical algorithm that predicted what he called “waves of novelty,” meaning human innovation throughout time and history, and he believed that what we do as human beings, as far as creating new things like the wheel or matches or the Internet, that what we’re doing is part of a mathematical program. Meaning that we are doing something that you can actually track with mathematics. And his algorithm showed that human innovation is pre-destined. It’s just what we do, like bees make beehives, ants make anthills — human beings make technology. We change our environment, we alter things. And that eventually we were going to reach a peak point, or a point of what they call “ultimate novelty,” and that this is going to be a moment where something is invented, something happens, that changes the world as we know it.

(Just try and ignore it, passing motorists.)

Today is my lucky day, Potato Nation.  Here I am in Vegas for UFC 94, and it’s the grand opening of the Tito Ortiz Punishment MMA Store.  What are the odds!?  Even better, the store is conveniently located inside the Hooters Hotel and Casino across from the MGM Grand, where the fights will take place tomorrow night, so naturally I had to drop in and see what kind of sweet Team Punishment gear I could pick up.

A sign informed me that Justin “The Insane 1” McCully and Tiki Ghosn would be signing autographs tomorrow afternoon, thus completing what is perhaps MMA’s greatest D-list event.

The store itself is tiny, and filled with exactly the kinds of clothes you’d expect.  Almost every t-shirt featured either a fist or chains, sometimes a combination of both.  Despite today being the grand opening, however, I was the only person in the store.  Well, aside from the three teenage girls working there, who were all fairly brimming with excitement (see below).

(Karo suddenly remembers that "Overboard" is on TNT tonight, and immediately wishes he had stayed home. Oh, that Goldie Hawn.)

When we made reference to Karo Parisyan’s physical and mental troubles as reasons why he might not be in optimal shape against Dong Hyun Kim on Saturday, we were partly speculationg and partly joking.  But you know who doesn’t joke around?  The UFC.  And just in case Parisyan burns them again with another late withdrawal in the hours before fight time, they now have a back-up plan.

MMA Mania says the UFC has 7-2 Rick Story (just think of the nickname possibilities, such as "Bedtime" or "Cinderella") waiting in the wings to step in as a replacement for Parisyan if needed.  It would be Story’s first UFC appearance, though he does have a couple of quality wins against guys like Brandon Melendez and Jake Ellenberger under his belt, so he’s no chump.  

But if Parisyan really does pull out on extremely short notice again, you’d have to think that would spell the end of his UFC career.  The fact that the UFC is worried enough about it to have a replacement on hand is already a sign of their complete lack of faith in him.  

On the flip side, it also means that expectations are so low all he really has to do to exceed them is step in the Octagon on Satuday night without freaking out.  This is one of those few times in life where just showing up is enough, much like your wedding day.  And the creeping sense of dread and regret that follows?  You can just push that way down in your subconscious for years until it finally boils to the surface.  So come on, Karo.  Keep it together.

(Rolker and Royce Gracie pay their last respects to their father. Photos courtesy of Sherdog.)

Less than 10 hours after he passed away at the Beficência Portuguesa Hospital after contracting pneumonia, Helio Gracie was laid to rest in a modest ceremony in Petropolis, Brazil, witnessed by about 70 relatives, close friends and students. As Sherdog writes:

Speaking on behalf of Helio’s son Rickson Gracie, who was unable to reach Brazil in time for the funeral, Mario Aielo said:

(Props: CombatLifestyle)

BloodyElbow kicked up a lot of dust last night when they published a rumor saying that Affliction was preparing to shut its doors as an MMA promotion, and might be trying to arrange a deal with Zuffa to cut some of their extensive losses. In response, Tom Atencio went on the Hardcore Sports Rage show (Sirius 98) to deny the reports, saying that Affliction’s MMA promotion still had the backing of Golden Boy Promotions, Donald Trump and M-1 Global:

The rumor apparently originated from an incident on the Tom Leykis Show, where someone called in claiming to be the Affliction VP. The real Tom Atencio denies he was on the show, and denies that Affliction is reaching out to the UFC for a parachute, though he wouldn’t speak about the details of the company’s financials. ("That’s like me coming in and asking you how much you make at your company," he said.) Atencio suggested that the UFC felt threatened by Affliction’s relationship with Fedor Emelianenko, and asked everyone to just please chill out:

(Props: UFC‘s e-mail newsletter)

If you’ll be in Las Vegas for tomorrow night’s fights, don’t forget to stop by LAX afterwards to party with Our Great Lord Satan. Special appearance by Heidi and Spencer!

You know, it’s nice that even as hard as Dana White works he still finds time for a little fun, mainly by busting the balls of subordinates and playing office pranks on co-workers.  Whatever gets you through the day, right?  Although you can’t help but feel that Dana might not be as fun-loving were he on the business end of these pranks (remember the shock pen?).  But I guess that’s one advantage of being the boss.  The video blog cameraman aptly sums up his situation at the end of this installment, saying: “It’s like National Geographic.  They don’t stop the lions from eating the gazelles; they just film it.”

In other UFC 94 news, many of you have noticed that there’s no official Cage Potato Pick-em Contest for this event, mainly because we’ve been giving away so much stuff we’re pretty tapped at the moment.  That doesn’t mean you can’t still play for pride though, as the more enterprising among you have discovered.  

Head on over to our forums right now and enter your picks for a chance to win…a swift kick in the balls?  Dammit, you guys aren’t using our forums to try and turn this into one of your weirdo fetish sites again, are you?  Either way, best of luck to you all in the informal UFC 94 Pick-em Contest.

(‘Hope you got that camera turned on, ’cause I ain’t doing this shit again.’)

Looks like “running the rock” wasn’t enough to impress oddsmakers, as B.J. Penn is still the betting underdog just two days before UFC 94.  Maybe if we got the impression that the rock exercise was something he did every morning, rather than just once to show off for the cameras, things would be different.  

Today’s betting lines come from BestFightOdds.com, and they’re tighter than usual all across the board, with one exception.

Georges St. Pierre (-175) vs. BJ Penn (+166)
Lyoto Machida (-245) vs. Thiago Silva (+232)
Stephan Bonnar (-165) vs. Jon Jones (+156)
Karo Parisyan (-271) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (+260)
Nate Diaz (-117) vs. Clay Guida (+107)
Jon Fitch (-500) vs. Akihiro Gono (+450)
Chris Wilson (-295) vs. John Howard (+285)
Manvel Gamburyan (+116) vs. Thiago Tavares (-120)
Jake O’Brien (-240) vs. Christian Wellisch (+236)
Matt Arroyo (-170) vs. Dan Cramer (+161)

Thoughts…

(Props: ‘Card’ on the UG)

Hey look, it’s another demo trailer for UFC Undisputed, which now has a 6/2/09 release date. I’m still not sold on the way faces look in this thing, particularly when Penn’s slapping himself in the mug or when Edith is blowing a kiss to the camera. But the gameplay looks solid, and we can only hope that the real action on Saturday night is as crazy as what we see here. Still, if this is all just a little too high-tech for you…

(Props: MMA Scraps)

…you may be interested in this remix of Georges St. Pierre‘s fight against Jay Hieron at UFC 48, done in the style of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! Hieron’s brief loss of consciousness at the 1:06 mark is even more entertaining with 8-bit sound effects.

After the jump: Nate Diaz explains why he stormed out of the press conference after UFC Fight Night 15 — like everything he says, it makes a lot of sense — and he and Clay Guida discuss pace and height difference for their matchup on Saturday. Also, complete footage of yesterday’s UFC press conference at the MGM’s Hollywood Theatre in Las Vegas, featuring Georges St. Pierre, BJ Penn, Lyoto Machida, and Thiago Silva.

(And his tailor’s better, too. Photo courtesy of GSPFightClub.com.)

Hello, and welcome to another installment of "Ben vs. Ben." With the OMFG GREATEST FIGHT IN HISTORY just two days away, we decided to sling some bullshit about the deciding factors in St. Pierre vs. Penn, the likely bonus-earners at UFC 94, and the legitimacy of Machida vs. Silva as a #1 contender match. And now we offer our humble thoughts…to you. Enjoy, and holla back in the comments section, ‘kay?

***

How and when will the B.J. Penn-Georges St. Pierre fight end?

BF: Whether you think Penn has been slacking during his training or not, the fact is that he doesn’t have the kind of talent around him that GSP does. Guys like Nate Marquardt, Donald Cerrone, Keith Jardine, etc. Name one training partner Penn has who is as good as any one of those guys. Like his brother said, Penn is the president of his own camp. That’s not a good place for a fighter in training, especially if the fighter in question has had some conditioning and motivation issues. He ought to be more like a Congressional aide, getting bossed around and possibly sexually harassed every single day.

This being a welterweight fight only hurts Penn more. Not because of the strength and size he’ll be giving up – he’s talented enough to compensate for that – but because it doesn’t absolutely force him to be in excellent shape like he was against Sean Sherk, and so he won’t be. He may be in very good shape, but that’s not enough to go five rounds with GSP.

Penn will start off winning this fight with his striking and takedown defense. But by the third round he’ll begin to slow down. St. Pierre will stay right on top of him, wearing him down mentally and physically, and by the fifth round he’ll be looking for a way out. GSP will grant it to him by holding him down and punching him in the face until the ref stops it at around the three-minute mark. Penn has never gone five rounds in a winning effort. He won’t start against St. Pierre.

BG: In a perfect world, BJ Penn would have a tune-up fight at welterweight before taking on Georges St. Pierre. After all, Penn hasn’t won a match as a 170-pounder since May 2004, and it would be helpful to test out the new weight at least once before putting his legacy on the line. I think your observation that the welterweight division doesn’t force BJ to show up in optimal shape is a good one. I also think GSP is two days away from the greatest performance of his life.

St. Pierre’s game-plan is a closely guarded secret, but you have to assume that he knows Penn is great with his hands, and he’ll be looking to avoid them early. I don’t think Penn wins the first round, or the next two. The fight will end late in the fourth — around the 4:24 mark, let’s say — with Penn fading and GSP turning on his reserve boosters. Yes, it’ll be a TKO due to strikes. St. Pierre has done the work in the gym and the hype hasn’t affected his emotions. There’s only one way this can end.

How worthy of a title shot is the winner of Machida/Silva?

(Nate Quarry [left] shows off the move that made him famous. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com.)
 
The UFC returns to Montreal on April 18th for UFC 97, headlined by the shrug-worthy title fight between Anderson Silva and Thales Leites, and the somewhat more compelling light-heavyweight battle between fading legends Chuck Liddell and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. Here’s some of the supporting bouts that we’ll be seeing on the card…

— Jason MacDonald vs. Nate Quarry (MW): MacDonald is coming off a first-round submission-via-strikes loss to Wilson Gouveia at last month’s TUF 8 finale, and hasn’t been able to put together two wins in a row since 2006. Quarry became Demian Maia‘s latest strangulation victim when he succumbed to a rear-naked choke at UFC 91 in November. The win-or-get-fired threat level on this one has been raised to Orange.

— Luis Cane vs. Steve Cantwell (LHW): Though Cane was originally rumored to face Keith Jardine in his next fight, the Dean of Mean was booked to headline UFC 96 (March 7th, Columbus) instead. Cane will instead be taking on reigning WEC light-heavyweight champ Steve Cantwell, who famously snapped Razak Al-Hassan’s arm at last month’s "UFC Fight for the Troops," then gloated about it afterwards. Cane is coming off of impressive TKO victories over Jason Lambert and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, while Cantwell is on a four-fight win streak, dating back to his time in the WEC.

(Rest in peace.)

Sad, sad news for students and fans of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. From IntheGuard.tv:

According to Tatame, the funeral may be postponed, as Helio’s sons Rickson, Royler, and Rorion were out of the country when he died. In addition to those three, Helio is survived by his wife Vera, his sons Relson, Rolker, Royce, and Robin, his daughters Rherica and Ricci, and an army of grandchildren, nephews, and nieces. According to GracieMag, Helio’s last words were "I created a flag from the sport’s dignity. I oversee the name of my family with affection and nerves of blood." Wow.

Born October 1st, 1913, Helio and his older brother Carlos developed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu circa 1929-1930, refining the techniques of their judo instructor Otávio Mitsuyo Maeda so that smaller fighters would be able to overcome larger ones through leverage. In 1932, Helio began competing in challenge matches, in which the Gracies would take on fighters of all styles to prove that their jiu-jitsu was the most superior method of ending a fight. These "vale tudo" (everything allowed) contests were popularized in the U.S. decades later when Helio’s son Rorion co-founded the Ultimate Fighting Championship, selecting his brother Royce as the representative of their art. Today, knowledge of BJJ is generally thought of as a requirement for competing as a mixed martial artist. A moment of silence for one of the sport’s true godfathers…

Related: The Top Ten Gracies of All Time

(F*ckin’ boo him.)

WEC lightweight champ Jamie Varner may have won a grueling title defense against Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone on Sunday — but between his injuries, the fan reaction, and his bank account, he isn’t exactly feeling like a winner right now. During an appearance on Sherdog’s "Beatdown" radio show yesterday, Varner rattled off the laundry list of ouchies that he left the cage with last weekend:

During that fifth round, Cerrone was able to score his first takedown of the night, then kneed Varner in the face when the champ was trying to get up. Varner’s knees — just barely — were touching the mat. Referee Josh Rosenthal halted the action and called the illegal blow unintentional, but Varner couldn’t continue, claiming that he couldn’t see. The fight went to the scorecards, and the crowd erupted in boos. Needless to say, the idea that some fans think Varner faked his injury to get out of finishing the last couple minutes of the fight doesn’t sit well with him:

The Penn/St. Pierre chapter of UFC Primetime came to an end last night, with both fighters wrapping up their training camps and leaving home for the neutral ground of Las Vegas. It was an impressive final episode, particularly for the music and editing — from Rashad Evans‘s epic pimp-entrance in the beginning, to the final montage of both fighters saying their goodbyes to to their families and moving on by themselves. If you didn’t tune in, check out the above highlight reel for a short recap. Running the rock? Awesome. Having Troy Mandaloniz as your main training partner? Not so awesome.

Watch Jon Fitch On His UFC 94 Bout on RawVegas.tv

This video from MMA Fix relates some of Jon Fitch’s experience on "Mythbusters" and his work on a documentary about his preparation for Georges St. Pierre, but what’s interesting is when the talk turns to Fitch’s spot on the dark portion of UFC 94 for his bout with Akihiro Gono.  

Naturally, he plays it down, says he’s only thinking about the fight and doesn’t harbor any ill feelings towards Dana White for the video game licensing debacle and this ensuing punishment.  You know, all the things he really has to say in this situation.  But we aren’t buying it.

No matter what he says, Fitch has to realize how absurd it is for him to be on the undercard here.  He was a title contender a few months back, and now he’s pushed to the untelevised portion of the event while Jon Jones-Stephan Bonnar makes the broadcast.  It’s insanity.  What’s more, it’s childish.  Didn’t the UFC get the point across when they fired him for a day?  

We’re hoping that this is just holdover anger from Dana White that has dissipated by now, and that after Lyoto Machida surprises everyone with a twenty-second knockout victory they’ll use some of that extra time to show Fitch-Gono.

Programming Reminder: The final episode of “UFC Primetime” airs tonight, so set your DVRs, tell your girlfriend you won’t make it over to watch “Top Chef," do whatever you gotta do.

Dana White’s UFC 94 video blog, episode 3 – Watch more free videos

Dana White handles some media obligations, gets covered in make-up, and divides his time between his “Irish mob TV show” and the build-up to UFC 94.  Just in case he didn’t have enough to worry about, his driver gets pulled over in NYC for talking on his cell phone.  Dana attempts to smooth things over with some fun little jokes about the guy’s national heritage.  Maybe not the best time for that.

Oh, Jerry Millen.  Is it not enough that you ripped off Dana White’s video blog?  Now you have to try and propel yourself into the limelight using some ill-advised, sorority girl-style text message campaign?  Who does that?

After the jump, B.J. Penn gets himself DQ’d at a grappling tournament.

(Courtesy of BadBoy.com)

Does anybody else feel sorry for Thiago Silva after watching this video of Lyoto Machida preparing for their fight at UFC 94? Machida really is one of the most focused, technically sound fighters in the world, and if he can score the mount on Silva as easily as he does with his training partner at the video’s 0:42 mark, forget about it. Plus, he has that "spirit" thing going for him, which is nice.

As Machida’s brother Chinzo points out, Lyoto "will only attack an opponent when he knows that the strike will hit its mark." And of course there’s the matter of his confounding defense. FightMetric put together this comparison of Lyoto Machida and some of MMA’s current champions, based on the number of strikes they absorb per minute of fighting ("SApM"):

It’s a very telling statistic, when you consider that many MMA fans would name Fedor/Anderson/Georges/BJ as the top four pound-for-pound fighters in the world, in that order. Does Machida deserve to be ranked among them? He certainly has the talent; maybe by the end of the year he’ll have the accomplishments as well.

(Think of it this way, New York legislators: Every time you stall on the vote, you’re robbing Mandy Moore of her joy.)
 
MMA Mania passes along a bit of bad news regarding the fight to lift the ban on MMA in New York State:

If there’s a bright side to this unfortunate setback, it’s that it gives the MMA community more time to spread awareness of this issue to the uninformed. Please do your part by signing our "Lift the Ban on MMA in New York" petition (if you haven’t already), and sending the link to every MMA fan and New Yorker that you know. I’m sure we can get this thing to over 10,000 signatures before it’s time to present it to New York’s Assembly Committee on Tourism, Arts and Sports Development. Thanks so much, everybody…

Perhaps this is a sign that MMA has truly hit the mainstream, although it’s enough to make you wish it hadn’t.  Lori Foster is a best-selling romance novelist who is apparently also a huge MMA fan.  I guess it only makes sense that she would blend these two passions in her new novel My Man, Michael.  But wait, it gets better.  And by better I mean worse.  Just check out this plot synopsis:

Michael thinks an injury will keep him from fighting again until a woman shows up and promises to heal him. But, he must travel with her and teach a community of woman warriors to fight in return.  Imagine Michael’s surprise when she fulfills her end of the bargain and finds that, to fulfill his he must travel into the future!

Oh, good.  A romance novel about MMA that also includes time travel.  Nothing like a little half-assed science fiction to go with your clichéd plotlines and completely absurd dialogue.  What’s not to love?

I don’t point this book out to bash Lori Foster or the romance novel genre in general, since doing so is like pointing out the stupidity of romantic comedies.  Everyone knows they’re terrible, but they sell, so they’re allowed to continue.  Instead, I point it out as a way of asking, why can’t we get a real MMA novel, the way there used to be real, awesome boxing novels, like The Professional and The Knockout Artist?  Instead we get shit like this.  Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter, just to piss you off:

(‘Lying is such a negative word.  I prefer to call it efficient storytelling.’)

By all accounts, HBO boxing commentator Larry Merchant’s claim that Oscar De La Hoya was missing the Shane Mosley-Antonio Margarito bout on Saturday because Affliction paid him $5 million to attend their show is straight up false.  The question is, did Merchant know it was untrue when he said it?  According to what Golden Boy CEO Richard Shaefer told Sherdog, the answer is: kind of.

Schaefer says he told Merchant that De La Hoya would be helping to promote the Affliction show because “our partners at Affliction made an over $5 million commitment to the event.”  Merchant took that and twisted it to mean that Golden Boy was paid $5 million by Affliction, which is quite a leap, as even Merchant almost admits:

“The $5 million was the number thrown out,” Merchant told Sherdog.com on Tuesday. “There was not a discussion on how that precisely was allocated or how it was branded. Is it a little bit glib or short-handed to say that Golden Boy got $5 million and Oscar had to be there? Yeah. Yeah. I’m on television and I’m trying to tell a story as tightly as I can.”

That’s obviously a pretty sorry excuse.  Being on TV doesn’t give you license to distort a story just to make it shorter, as Merchant well knows.  The fact is he just doesn’t like MMA, as he freely admits without ever being asked.  Even tacked on to the end of his erroneous $5 million claim was this little zinger: “It would take that much to get me to go to one of those things.”  Now he says he’d go for a mere $100,000, despite the fact that no one in the MMA world wants or needs him there.

But the thing that’s frustrating about Merchant’s disdain for MMA is that it makes no sense coming from a guy whose life has been spent covering the fight game.  Just look at this quote from Merchant about the decline of boxing, taken from Joe Layden’s book about the Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas bout, The Last Great Fight:

(Photo courtesy of daniel-gillet.com.)

Despite damning visual evidence, Jeff Monson pled not guilty yesterday to a felony vandalism charge that arose from his spray-painting an anarchy symbol, a peace sign, and the phrases “No war” and “No poverty” on Washington State’s Capital building in November. Monson was forced to surrender his passport due to concerns that he might be a flight risk, but expects to get it back during a hearing set for tomorrow. If he doesn’t, his next two fights will be in jeopardy; Sherdog says that Monson is scheduled to fight Ibragim Magomedov in Russia next month and Roger Gracie in Japan in March.

Of course, those fights may have to be canceled anyway. A conviction on the spray-paint pinch would put Monson in jail for at least 60 days — and his recent assault/property damage arrest could open an entirely new can of punitive worms. But according to the Snowman, you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the Internet:

Still, the five days spent cooling in a North Carolina jail waiting to be extradited to Washington forced Monson — who has been married for 16 years and has two children in Olympia — to reflect on how he got there:

Multiple sources are reporting that the upcoming welterweight title match between WEC champ Carlos "Natural Born Killer" Condit and top contender Brock Larson — scheduled for WEC 39 on March 1st — has been canceled, with Condit on the verge of moving to the UFC. Though Five Ounces of Pain first reported the news, their claim that the Condit/Larson bout was scrapped due to an injury sustained by Larson is being refuted by MMA Weekly, who says that Condit was the one who first dropped out of the Corpus Christi WEC show due to a sprained wrist.

At any rate, it seems the UFC has decided that this might be a good time to bring Condit up to the big leagues; Condit is on an eight-fight win streak and hasn’t lost since June 2006. The current rumor is that he’ll be facing Martin Kampmann at UFC Fight Night 18 (April 1st, Nashville), and it’s been speculated that this is the first step towards the elimination of the WEC’s welterweight division; the WEC discontinued its middleweight and light-heavyweight classes late last year, with the UFC signing standout fighters Brian Stann, Steve Cantwell, and Chael Sonnen.

In other UFC news…

— Replacing the injured Amir Sadollah against Nick Catone at UFC Fight Night 17 (February 7th, Tampa) will be UFC newbie Derek "The Gentleman" Downey, a Utah-based fighter who has built up a 10-3 record fighting in regional promotions. Nine of his 10 wins have come by first-round stoppage.

— Houston Alexander is getting another chance to prove himself after taking his third-straight first-round loss to Eric Schafer last September. The Assassin will be returning at UFC 98 (May 23rd, Las Vegas) against Andre Gusmao, the former IFL standout who dropped a decision to Jon Jones in his Octagon debut at UFC 87.

(Watch out for the uppercut, Joe)

Give the UFC this much, they don’t wait until the last minute to secure a replacement when someone goes down with an injury.  Earlier today we told you about Hermes Franca pulling out of his main event bout with Joe Lauzon and then starting a bizarre internet rivalry.  This afternoon UFC.com announced that Jeremy “Lil’ Heathen” Stephens would be taking Franca’s place on Feb. 7.

You might remember Stephens as the guy who was on his way to losing a decision against Rafael Dos Anjos at UFC 91 before he unfurled a murderous uppercut in the third round that knocked Dos Anjos out cold (see above).  It was an exciting finish that made us remember him and the totally sweet nickname "Lil’ Heathen" (even though it rhymes with his last name and we kind of hate that), but Stephens vs. Lauzon still feels like exactly what it is: a replacement bout.